


Hold the Dawn

by Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays, silksieve



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays/pseuds/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silksieve/pseuds/silksieve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vienna Shepard’s parents are exemplar soldiers, heroes of the First Contact War; her mother a stalwart officer and her father a technological genius. Shepard longs to follow in their footsteps, but her aptitude is nothing extraordinary.   But conscious choice, determination, and an unfailing persistence along with a sturdy set of tech armor might just see her through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Words by silksieve, Art by Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays
> 
> Artist's note:  
> This is the first Big Bang I've participated in and I've enjoyed it thoroughly. This was a fantastic story to read and to illustrate, and Silksieve was a pleasure to work with. Thanks to her and to Azzy and bioticbooty for organizing this!
> 
> Author's note:  
> It's been such a delight to partner with Gamma in my first Big Bang. Gamma's gorgeous art brought life to the story and is definitely worth more than a thousand words! Thanks to Azzy and bioticbooty for their amazing wrangling.

“Cadet, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that if you’re going to get passing marks.”

Shepard clutched her sides while pain bit sharply through her lats.  Her lungs burned and her head spun from dehydration.  She nodded. “Sir. Yes, sir.”

Captain Matthews shook his head.  “Your time is acceptable, but look at you.”  He pointed at yellow splotches on her upper right arm, lower right calf, stomach, and, most tellingly, the back of her head.  “That was four times you were shot, including a headshot.  I’d say that makes you a dead scout, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve got to be more aware of your surroundings.  Speed and strength are important, but you won’t survive in the field without a good tactical sense of surroundings.  No one outruns a speeding bullet, as my old CO used to say.  Or if you go head to head to head with one of those turians.  Ever see one of them?"

“Yes, sir.”

He spat amiably.  “Damned turians.  Make the most significant discovery in the history of mankind and what do we find but the most aggressive and holier-than-thou aliens in the universe.  Not that they don’t have the firepower to back up that attitude.  You ever fight a turian, you’re not going to win on natural ability.  Have to outthink them.  Remember your Shanxi analysis in Strategems?  We’re smart, flexible, and quicker-witted than most of the galaxy.  Have to use what we got.”

“Yes, sir."

“You’ve got a lot to live up to, kid.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not with these results, you won’t.”

“No, sir.”

“No.  Got your breath back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.  20 laps while you think about what went wrong, and then go through the course again.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

***

 

“Vienna, honey, hand me that screwdriver.”

“Here, Daddy!” Vienna placed the small tool carefully in her father’s hand, and then leaned over his knee to watch as he attached the tiny cruiser’s wing to its body.  He tested the stability of the wing with a satisfied sigh and leaned down to blow a kiss against the top of her head. 

She giggled.  “Now the lights, Daddy.”

“Of course the lights!  Can’t have a working ship without power, can we?”  He gathered a couple of small wires from his desk, and handed them to her.  “You’ll help me, won’t you?  I’m not sure I can figure this out on my own.’

She laughed again.  “Daddy!  The blue goes starboard and the red one goes port.”

“That’s right. And we plug in the white line, which will kick off the energy cell.”  He grinned at her.  “Want to push the button?”

“Mmmhmm.”  She tapped her daddy’s omni-tool and the little ship lit up in all its little windows, whirring  softly as it floated slightly over the table.  It didn’t have a true mass effect drive, of course, just a bit of blue lighting and some magnetic gears, but Vienna loved it all the same.

She touched the model ship reverently.  “Daddy, when I grow up, I’m going to be a hero, just like you and Mama.”

Her daddy laughed, eyes crinkling on the sides.

“Thank you for the compliment, sweetheart.  Who have you been talking to, that’s put such thoughts in your head?

“Ensign Gottfried.  He said Mama out-raced and out-gunned a turian interceptor during a war and that _you_ saved a whole _camp_.”

“Oh, Gottfried.  Well, he does have a little hero shine in his eyes, fresh off the transport.  We’re right in the middle of the most exciting discovery and expansion period in human history, and it’s all very exciting.  But, Vienna, it’s important to remember that both your mother and I did what we needed to do, nothing more.

“We owe duty to our service and responsibility to the people we serve; that’s what we signed up for when we joined the Alliance, like our families did before us.  It doesn’t make us special.  It just makes us soldiers.”

Vienna touched the little airlock on the model ship.  “So are all soldiers heroes?”

“If you want to look at it that way, yes.  There’s a lot of honor in serving, but there’s sacrifice, too.  Anyone who’s willing to step up and make those sacrifices deserves to be called a hero.”

Vienna thought for a moment.  “Then I’ll be a soldier.  Or a pilot!  Or an inventor.”

Her daddy laughed.  “Well, there’s still a lot of time before you need to make a final decision on any of that.  Not that I wouldn’t be proud as a peacock of my girl, but there are a lot of other choices you can make; a lot of things still for you to learn and many, many years for you to do that.”

He winked at her.  “Although just between you and me,” he whispered loudly, “outrunning a turian ship _definitely_ makes for a hero.”

“Who’s a hero?”

“Mama!”

Her mama laughed, raven hair slipping free from her knot, and scooped up Vienna for a hug.

Daddy gave Mama a kiss on the cheek and said, “The one who does all the flying.”

Mama grinned.  “That’s right, she is.  But of course, we’d be dead in the water without our trusty engineers.  I hear they blow up things, too.”

Daddy shrugged and smiled.  “I try.”

Mama gave Vienna a squeeze.  “All right, Vienna, it’s bedtime.  Let’s get you into the bath and into your jammies. Say goodnight to your daddy; he’s on duty in thirty minutes.”

Vienna made a face.  “Why do I have to be called Vienna anyway?  I’d much rather be Grace or Asada or Peli.  Peli has the prettiest name.”

Daddy laughed.  “You were born on the SSV Vienna, sweetheart; it’s an old navy tradition.  Although I’m not quite sure we would have named you Budapest or Kilimanjaro if we had been stationed on those ships.”

Mama shrugged.  “Oh, I don’t know.  Kilimanjaro Shepard has kind of a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Ech,” Vienna said.

Daddy ruffled her hair.  “You’re a Shepard, too, you know.  And you can call yourself anything, if it means that much to you.  Maybe we should call you Vi for short?”

She giggled.

“Thing is, sweetheart, you can be anything and anyone you set your mind to.  If you work hard enough so that you can take whatever  the universe throws at you, then you’re a hero for that alone.”

He pulled Mama and her into his arms.  “I believe in my best girls.  Sweet dreams.”

 

***

 

 

"Hey, I was using that!"

"Oh, sorry, didn't see you there." Peli clicked the lab’s micro-pylon back on. "Why are you still here, Shepard? Go to bed. Those tools will be here in the morning.”

Shepard shook her head.  “The sooner I finish this, the sooner I can start using it.”

“And what is _this_ , exactly?”

“It’s a design of my father’s.  During the First Contact War, he invented a generator power routing system that could create a force field strong enough to deflect fire.  He came up with a prototype a few years ago that maps the force fields onto the body as wearable armor.  I think the Alliance is analyzing it for application in the field, but it requires an independent generator tucked somewhere in a hardsuit.”  She held up her left arm where her omni-tool glowed orange.  “I’m trying to see if I can make a modified version that can be powered just with this.  Even if it’s weaker than my dad’s model, I think the tradeoff could be worth it.”

She glanced ruefully at the worktable.  “Three weeks, and it still shorts out every single time I turn it on.  I’m not quite sure where the problem is, and I know I’m going to have a permanent migraine after this, but it’s getting easier each time I iterate, so at least there’s that.”

“And you don’t want your dad to take a look?”

“Oh no, I’d love to get his expertise, but he’s on some incommunicado assignment right now, and I can’t reach him.  So, mess and headaches.”

Peli grimaced.  “That’s a lot of work for something that might be hypothetical.  Why do you need it to work so badly?”

“You’ve heard what Matthews is saying about me.  And you’ve seen me.  I’m abysmal.  And he’s right, no one can outrun a speeding bullet.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say abysmal, but you do seem to take a lot of hits.  Probably because you keep running out in front.  Hang back next time, let someone else draw fire.”

“Somebody’s got to be the first one in, and it might as well be me.  I just need something that will help soak up the damage.”  She grinned.  “Stick around, Peli.  You might learn something.”

Sparks flew as she made another adjustment, and Shepard sat back in satisfaction.  “I think that should do it for this round.  Want to see it in action?” 

“Am I going to need to duck?”

Shepard laughed.  “That…might not be a bad idea.  Here, take these goggles.  Ok, ready?”

“Let’s see it.”

The air in front of Shepard’s test mannequin shimmered before coalescing into an orange latticework, curving around the shoulders and separating into delicate plating in the front and down the arms.  The energy strands rippled and glowed while a faint hum filled the lab.

Shepard waited a minute before approaching the mannequin.  Her smile was brilliant as she turned back to Peli.  “Holy crap, Peli, I think it’s holding!”

Peli walked forward cautiously.  “Wow, Shepard.  That’s a very pretty piece of armor you have there.”

Shepard grinned.  “It’s a beauty, all right.”  She reached to pat the mannequin’s shoulder.  “Just wait until next cl—“

Her hand came down on the armor, which promptly burst in an explosion that flung Shepard and Peli against the back wall.

Shepard coughed.  “You okay there, Peli?” 

“Didn’t duck fast enough.”

Shepard righted herself to gaze at the lab in dismay; glass was still falling from the ceiling and scorch marks were absolutely everywhere.  The mannequin stood in the middle of the room, untouched and, Shepard could have sworn, smiling.

“Ohhh, how much trouble am I going to get in _this_ time,” she moaned.

“Well,” Peli said, standing up, “just tell the COs you were testing a new weapon and got a little overenthusiastic.”

“Yeah, because that’s so much better.”  Shepard turned a considering eye back to the mannequin.  “Hmm.  Offensive _and_ defensive capabilities.  I like the way you think, Peli.”

“Oh, no.”  Peli groaned.  “Shepard, this is going to take _a lot_ more iteration.”

 

***

 

Vienna couldn’t stop the sobs.  Sixteen was much too old to be crying, but she just couldn’t control the noises that kept coming and the tears that rolled down her cheeks.  She pushed her fists tighter against her mouth, but the shaking wouldn’t stop, either. 

She huddled closer to the back of the closet, and hoped she would never have to come out, ever again.

“Vienna, honey?”

 She shook her head, even though she knew her dad couldn’t see.

He tapped on the closet door again.  “Vienna?  Lieutenant Kander said you’d left your classes.  Do you want to come out and talk about it?”

“No,” she cried.  “I just want to forget today ever happened.”

There was a slight pause.  “It’s already forgotten.  Now, I’m planning to make some new memories for myself with berry cobbler, if you’d like to join me.”

She paused. 

“Real berries?”

“Well, no.  I think that would be a red-letter day, wouldn’t you?  Sadly, these berries came from the reconstitutor, but they’re still pretty good, especially in cobbler with a little cream.  Even if it is reconstitutor  cream.”

She considered staying in the comforting darkness of the closet for a moment, but rubbed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.  “Ok.”  Berries were still berries.  And there were times, as her dad would say, to soldier on.  Embarrassing enough to lose control of the class; she didn’t need to disgrace herself further.

She pushed the door open, still red-eyed.

Her dad was in their small kitchen, grabbing bowls and spoons, and he turned to dish out generous helpings of the dessert.

The sugared fruit was too sweet on Vienna’s tongue, but it still didn’t overpower the bitter acid of the day.  Her dad, seemingly oblivious, finished a bite and then grinned and balanced his spoon on the end of his nose.  Usually, the old joke would have made her laugh, but today, it only brought back the misery of the day in a rush.

“I hate being biotic,” she blurted out.

Her dad paused in mid-bite.  “Oh?  I thought you liked being able to move things with your mind.”  He waggled his eyebrows at her.  “Not everybody has superpowers, you know.”  He paused.  “Today never happened, but if you want to talk about anything, I’m here.”

Vienna resisted the urge to kick her chair leg.   Finally, she said, “Everyone always thinks we’re freaks.  Even people like Yuriko get teased mercilessly, only she doesn’t care because she’s _good_ at it.  We practiced control in our tutorial today, and she lifted her glass of water all the way from one end of the room to the other.  My aim was way off.”  She looked down.  “And then I shattered my glass.  Claude Veroux laughed at me when I had to come back to get dry clothes.

“What’s the point of being a freak if I can’t even do anything useful?”

“That’s a tough one, but let me say first and foremost that you are and never will be a _freak._ A third of the kids on this ship are biotic and there are lots more all over the fleet.  In the colonies and on Earth, too, although it seems to show up in spacer kids most often.  You could hide that blue light of yours under a bushed, but let me say, your biotics are a gift if you let them.  There are some out there who want us to be afraid of biotics, but they haven’t seen how they can be applied.”

Vienna made a face, but her father continued.  “I know you don’t believe me right now, but you’re still learning to master your skills.  That’s why you’re in these tutorials.  It’s too bad that we don’t have a formal Alliance academy for all of you, but biotics are still a relatively new thing to us humans.  I don’t think that we have a perfect understanding yet of everything we’re capable of.  Everything that _you’re_ capable of.  And if you’re a little weak in learning how to use and control, well, that will change if you’re persistent, and you practice, and you have a desire to improve.  It’s not the easiest or most comfortable thing to fail on the way to mastery, but you’ll get there.  I know it.”

“How do you know?”

“Look, neither your mother nor I have what you have, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what thinking we’ve failed feels like.  I know you look at us and think we’re the best, but that’s because you weren’t around for all the blood, sweat, and tears that got us here.”  He laughed a bit.  “Did you know my old LT used to say that I didn’t have a lick of circuitry talent in me?  And it was true at the time; pretty sure I overloaded more than one computer on accident.  But I kept going, and one day, all those capacitors and resistors started making sense.  They became elegant and beautiful to me, and I guarantee that if you stick with your practice, that’s how you’ll feel about your biotics, too.

“Now, if you’re not going to finish that last bite, pass your bowl over here so I can.”

Vienne pushed over the remnants of her dessert.  She asked quietly, “But what if I’m not good enough?  What if I just can’t do things like Yuriko, no matter how hard I try?”

“Vienna, maybe you’ll never have the raw talent of an asari, but you’ll be an expert on what you can do, and knowing your limitations _and_ your potential is going to be just as powerful.  You take responsibility for your actions, and you’ll be able to to apply yourself to whatever it is you want to do, whether it’s to become a soldier, a doctor, or a dancer.”

“Soldier,” she muttered.  “Definitely soldier.”

“Well,” her dad said.  “Don’t you want to find out you who are once you’ve pushed yourself enough to know yourself?  I know I can’t wait to see.”

 

***

 

“Shepard, on your three!” Peli yelled.

Shepard spun hard and flung a warp at the training mech.  It shut down, paint gun still pointed at her. 

“More incoming!”

“Go! I’ve got this!” Shepard shouted.  Peli scrambled over the barricade and ran towards the end NavPoint, ducking behind one of walls of the practice field.

Shepard evaluated her tactical position.  She knew that Peli would be running her evasive maneuvers.  Osipov was taking rear guard and sniping what he could.  There were five mechs bearing on her location from the front, with three diverting after Peli.   Two more were trying to flank her on the left.  She couldn’t see anything else on her right, but it didn’t mean there wasn’t something there. 

“Osipov, see if you can take care of a couple of these mechs,” she said into her comm.  “I’m going after the rest.”

“You got it, Shepard,” Osipov said.

A concussive round slammed into one of the mechs at her twelve, and it clicked off.  She took aim at the mechs on her nine and managed to whittle one down quickly.  She knew Osipov would get another of the ones coming from the front, but that still left two more about to trap her at her position, leaving her no way to clean up the squad tailing Peli.

Shepard activated a program on her omnitool to overload the mechs’ circuits.  While electrical current raced over the mechs, she sent a warp at one of them.  As soon as the field touched the mech, it exploded into pieces, severely damaging the other.

 _Oops_ , thought Shepard, as she ran after Peli.  _Good to know that happens._

She found Peli cornered by a group of four and about to be overwhelmed; Peli set a singularity which captured two of the mechs while she fired her SMG fiercely at the third.  Shepard could see the field growing weaker.  She threw her small but effective biotic field at one of the floating mechs, curving it around the corner with precision.  It knocked the mechs to the ground, setting off a biotic explosion that caught the last mech.

“Timer’s about to run out,” she shouted at Peli.  “Keep going!  I’ll run ahead and draw as much fire as possible.  Try to set me up with more singularities or warps if you can; the more mechs we can take out at once, the faster we’ll go.”

They moved through the challenge course, with Peli setting traps and Shepard detonating.

“We’re almost at extraction!  Ten seconds!” Shepard called.

“Shit! Mechs at our twelve! We’re not going to make it!” Peli cried.

“Push through!  _I’m not flunking_ _this course and neither are you._ ”  _I’m really going to regret this,_ Shepard thought before activating her armor program.  It glowed bright orange around her as she flung herself at Peli, tumbling them both towards the crowd of mechs.  She braced herself as she gave Peli one last push as she blew the circuitry.  The ensuing electrical discharge knocked her off her feet.

When she raised her head, she could see Peli groaning in the extraction zone, still clutching her transmitter package, while a nice pile of mechs surrounded her.  A pair of booted feet moved into her field of view.

“Unconventional, Shepard,” Captain Matthews peered down at her.  “Pass.”

“Pass, sir?” Shepard croaked, as she stood up.

“Objective was completed, wasn’t it?  Even if only Peli made it to the extraction zone. Something you’ll want to coordinate further.  This sort of thing’s only going to work once.”  He gestured around her.  “But I appreciate the effort.”

He inspected her omni-tool and looked appraisingly at her uniform, which still smoked slightly.  “Interesting program and application.  Go see Wei in the lab.  Tell him I sent you; see if you can figure a way to bring it under control.”  He nodded.  “Quick tactical thinking, Shepard.  Very team-minded.  Keep working on the endurance and the aim.  Dismissed.”

Shepard hobbled over to the side of the room and flopped onto a bench.  She stared at the simulator’s ceiling, going over the mission rundown in her head.

Osipov walked past on his way to the lockers, breaking down his rifle already.  “Taking a break?”

Shepard flipped him the bird.

“Quick thinking back there.  You led a good op.  Anytime you need another member on your team, Shepard, you let me know.”  He grinned at her.  “Listen, when you finish that post-mortem in your head, because I know that’s what you’re doing, come out for drinks with Peli and me.  Passing by the skin of our teeth always calls for celebration.”

 

***

 

“For your exemplary service to the Alliance, excellence in the field, and demonstrated leadership skills, we are pleased to invite you to join the Interplanetary Combatives Training program.  Please reply with your acceptance and report to Vila Militar on the first of August.”

Vienna finished reading the email from ICT aloud and looked up at the comm screen.  Her dad flashed her an encouraging thumbs-up.

“Am I crazy for even considering saying no?”  she asked.  “It’s an unbelievable opportunity, but I’m doing good work on a good crew.  N training is another level entirely, one that I can’t anticipate, that I don’t know _how_ to anticipate.  All my life, I’ve been so sure that that if I worked enough, pushed enough, I’d be able to do what I needed, but N-school?  Someone else chose this for me, and I have no idea if I can carry through.”

“Vienna, the only person who can answer that is you,” her mother said.  “They aren’t making up your credentials, that’s for sure.  We all know N training is a giant step up and forward, but it’s a big commitment and it will lead to bigger commitments.  You have the confidence of the Alliance.  What do _you_ want?”

Vienna hesitated.  “It’s such an honor, and I do want this.  But I also want to do it right.  I don’t want it just for an ego trip.  What if I’m not right for N training?”

“I’m a little shocked to hear you say this, Vienna,” her dad said.  “You’ve never shirked the difficult things, and your devotion to the service has been lifelong.  Although you’ve always been one to consider the possibilities, good and bad, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  I’ve always been impressed by your determination and ability to persevere, but you’d always set clear goals for yourself, too.  Now someone else is placing faith in you, for something you didn’t choose and don’t necessarily want.  Those external expectations are frightening.  But it’s not your skill or your ability that you’re really questioning, it’s the why of your dedication.  Is it responsibility to your uniform? Fulfilling a personal dream?  Service to the defenseless? For undeniable glory? A duty to bear?  You, of all people, know why you commit yourself, how you _choose_ , matters.

“So I’ll repeat your mother’s question: what do you want?”


End file.
